MOUND CITY – While homeowners in Linn County may still be suffering some grief after receiving their last property valuation statement, it may get worse. The state has notified Linn County Appraiser Kathy Bridges that residential values assigned to properties by Linn County appraisers were too low.
During the Linn County Commission meeting on Monday, August 15, County Clerk David Lamb reported on an email from County Appraiser Kathy Bridges.
The message from Bridges said that she just received a notice of procedural compliance from the state that she discussed with the commission the previous week. She said that everything asked for on that list – the three different sections, land valuation, depreciation analysis and final review – are now in compliance. Last year, they were out of compliance.
Now, the only thing out of compliance is the residential ratio, an item she had told the commissioners about last week.
Last week Bridges presented the 2021 Real Estate Appraisal/Sales Ration study from the state property valuation division. On that form the 2021 real estate sales ratio study was out of compliance for residential property. She said that according to the property valuation division, Linn County is still too low on property values.
She said that Linn County was graded on substantial compliance very heavily on residential because that is Linn County’s biggest base of value. She told the commissioners that there are 50 points available in the grading just for residential and Linn County did not receive any of those points.
“Our median ratio was at 88.9, and that needed to be at 90 or above, so we are almost there,” Bridges told the commissioners at their Aug. 8 meeting. “I did try to appeal some of those values that they used in their decision, because I did not feel like they were good sales.”
“We have a lot of diverse properties here,” she told commissioners, “We don’t have a lot of cookie cutter subdivisions. So when you look at sales, and the lake properties really don’t help us, because there are a lot of sheds that are picked up as residential classification.”
At last week’s meeting, Commissioner Rick James asked if we were out of compliance because we charged too much or not enough taxes. Bridges said not enough.
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